(NationalSentinel) Judiciary: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to get President Donald J. Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee confirmed, adding that the so-called “nuclear option” – changing Senate rules to do away with the filibuster – is “in the hands of Democrats.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that Judge Neil Gorsuch will be confirmed this week to the Supreme Court but acknowledged Republicans still might not have enough support from Senate Democrats to avoid their attempts to slow or try to stop the nomination process with a filibuster.

Gorsuch, President Trump’s pick to fill the high court seat of conservative Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, will almost certainly have enough votes early this week in the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee but will struggle to get 60 votes for final confirmation by Friday. (Scalia died in February 2016.)

Republicans have 52 senators in the chamber and will need the support of eight Democrats to get Gorsuch confirmed in a straight floor vote.

Without Democratic support, McConnell could get Gorsuch confirmed with a parliamentary maneuver known as the “nuclear option,” which would break the filibuster and get him confirmed on a simple 51-vote majority.

McConnell said Sunday that Gorsuch “deserves to be confirmed” and “will ultimately be confirmed.” But he would not commit to using the so-called nuclear option, arguing he’s still not sure how Democrats will vote.

“We’ll know through the course of the week,” he said. “It’s in the hands of Democrats.”

As we have noted before, the Democrats are so wedded to their Left-wing ideology the majority of them won’t support Gorsuch – or any GOP SCOTUS nominee, especially if they’re constitutional originalists like the current nominee. McConnell may be betting that some or even most of the Democrats up for election in 2018 from states that Trump won may sign on, but in the end it will take the nuclear option – a standard recently set by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. – to get Gorsuch and, under the current 52-48 majority, future Judicial nominees, approved and on the federal bench.

Given the opposition Trump is getting from far-Left judges appointed by Obama and confirmed by Reid’s bare majority, McConnell will have no choice if he truly wants to bring sanity and constitutionality back to the Judicial Branch.